Moon of the Wolf (TV, 1972) DIR: Daniel Petrie. SCR: Alvin Sapinsley, based on the novel by Leslie H. Whitten. PROD: Everett Chambers, Peter Thomas, Richard M. Rosenbloom. DOP: Richard C. Glouner. MUSIC: Bernardo Segall. CAST: David Janssen, Barbara Rush, Bradford Dillman, John Beradino, Geoffrey Lewis, Royal Dano, John Davis Chandler. Claudia McNeil.
Original Air Date: September 26, 1972 on ABC (Edward S. Feldman: Executive Producer); 74 min
A girl is found killed in the Louisiana Bayou. The townsfolk attribute her death to wild dogs, and form a posse to go shoot them up. Sheriff Aaron Whitaker, though, isn’t too sure that feral canines are to blame. The girl’s brother Lawrence (Geoffrey Lewis) also suspects foul play, albeit for different reasons. As more bodies pile up, it is revealed that something more sinister is the culprit.
After the TV series The Fugitive (1963-1967) and O’Hara U.S. Treasury (1971-1972), David Janssen kept very busy in nearly 20 movies of the week until his untimely death in 1980 at the age of 49. Two of them (Such Dust as Dreams are Made Of; Smile Jenny, You’re Dead) served as pilots for his detective series Harry O (1974-1976). Moon of the Wolf plays like a police procedural in a sense, as Janssen lends his typically gravelly cynical characterization to the sheriff who uncovers the key to the murders.
Director Daniel Petrie had several theatrical films, including the classic A Raisin in the Sun (1961), plus several theatrical films, including Lifeguard (1976), Resurrection (1980), Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), Six Pack (1982), and the Canadian classic, 1984’s The Bay Boy, a semi-autobiographical tale set in Petrie’s native Nova Scotia, which he also wrote. He was also very busy in television episodic work, as well as movies of the week, including Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969), A Howling in the Woods (1971, which would make a pretty good pair with tonight’s film), The Gun and the Pulpit (1974, a western I liked a lot), the highly successful Sybil (1976) and The Dollmaker (1984).
In the auspices of a quickie TV movie, director Petrie well-employs the mysterious Louisiana Bayou setting, though the action and suspense sequences are average. (The consistent POV is a tiresome device.) The revelation of the real killer is no great surprise – you could probably guess whodunit by reading the cast list!
The film is much more interesting as a Southern Gothic melodrama, in that the murders reveal town secrets: the murdered girl was pregnant from the town doctor, and that there a few closet skeletons in the well-established Rodanthe family. And yet, this is a milieu where the supernatural seems commonplace. Lawrence’s family has sulphur as werewolf repellent outside their shack, while the ailing father figure moans about the curse. When it is revealed that the killer is a werewolf (after the film’s highlight, in which the monster tears apart a jail cell, killing a deputy and an inmate), the townsfolk seem to have no trouble accepting such a fantastic theory. They just shrug and cock their rifles to hunt it down like they did all the feral dogs!
The screenplay is by accounts faithful to Leslie H. Whitten’s 1967 novel, however the film updates the book’s 1930s setting to present day, and ignores the undercurrents of racism among the townsfolk as intimated in the source material. All that survives in the racial dynamic is the inclusion of Lawrence’s family black housekeeper Sara. Even she suggests to the sheriff: “Find the father and you’ll find the killer!”
We watched this as a tribute screening for Barbara Rush, who had recently passed away. Rather fittingly, Whitaker becomes incidental to the plot, when the action shifts to her character Louise. She is very good in a role of the Rodanthe family member with a checkered past, whose attempt to start life anew after being summoned back home by her brother Andrew (Bradford Dillman, in a trademark authority figure role) is hampered by the discovery of an even more sordid family history.
An enduring appeal of these TV-movies is surprise of seeing who turns up in them. Geoffrey Lewis is well-used in a tailor-made role, adding to his resume of eccentric parts in rural-set movies. Familiar faces Royal Dano and John Davis Chandler are the father and son who discover the body!
Moon of the Wolf is among the handful of TV-movies that are in the public domain (including some Hijack, also with Janssen), so you should have no problem finding it to view. It gets better as it goes along, and remains a favourable way to spend 74 minutes on a slow night. My copy came from those Direct Source DVDs that filled shelves in Zellers’ final days: each disc was a flipper with public domain TV-movies, a mini-review, biographies and a trivia game! Weren’t those the days?
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.